42 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1 



have used this kind for over 15 years, and 

 would have no other. Try this and be con- 

 vinced. C. H. McFadden. 

 Clarksburg, Mo. 



[One or two others of our correspondents 

 have described this same thing and pro- 

 nounced it good; so we must conclude that 

 this method of protecting hive-covers is not 

 only practicable but easy of application. — 

 Ed.] 



morp: than one queen wintered in the 

 same hive. 



Friend Root: — In regard to plural queens 

 wintering in the same hive, perhaps I can 

 throw a little light upon the subject without 

 waiting until next spring. While I am not 

 a plural-queen bee-keeper, for the past three 

 winters I have had two queens winter in one 

 hive. 



I always clip my queens in the spring, long 

 before there are any queens hatched or drones 

 to fertilize them if queens were hatched. 



In the spring of 1905, when clipping, I 

 found a clipped queen and an undipped 

 queen in the same hive (apparently mother 

 and daughter), and both were busily deposit- 

 ing eggs on the same comb and on the same 

 side of it. I left the young one without clip- 

 ping, and opened the hive frequently, only 

 to find both busily engaged as before; but 

 along about the middle of the summer I could 

 see the old one was failing, and continued to 



frow weaker, and finally disappeared. Then 

 clipped the young one. This was at an 

 outyard. 



The spring of 1906 I was clipping the home 

 yard the latter part of April, and I found 

 two undipped queens in one hive (apparent- 

 ly sisters, as they looked exactly alike), both 

 busily engaged in depositing eggs on one 

 comb, though on opposite sides. I clipped 

 both and removed one to supersede an old 

 one. Both did good work all summer, and 

 again the past summer, and I think they are 

 both still alive. 



Last spring, when clipping in the home 

 jrard I found one clipped and one undipped 

 in one hive — apparently mother and daughter 

 — both depositing eggs; but the old one seem- 

 ed somewhat feeble, and did not live to ex- 

 ceed a month. Some skeptic may say this 

 was accidental, and the young queen came 

 from some other hive after they were removed 

 from the cellar; but, not so; and, even were 

 it probable, how would they explain or ac- 

 count for the two young ones in the same 

 hive? I had no deserting or swarming out, 

 and cases were exactly as stated. I mention 

 this merely to refute any such argument as 

 might be advanced. Elias Fox. 



Hillsboro, Wis. 



[The cases that you cite, of mother and 

 daughter both doing service at the same time 

 in a hive, are so common as to excite hardly 

 even a passing comment. It would not be 

 at all strange if a pair of such would get 

 along peaceably in the same hive over wm- 

 ter; but it is remarkable that two daughters 

 after the old queen disappeared, while they 



were virgins, should not have had a battle 

 royal, with the result that one of them was 

 killed. Apparently in the case given there 

 was no conflict, but, rather, they both went 

 to work laying eggs, and would probably 

 have continued to do so as long as the colo- 

 ny prospered. But during a dearth of hon- 

 ey, probably one of them would disappear 

 if not removed by the apiarist —Ed.] 



BEES CHOOSE A LOCATION BEFORE SWARM- 

 ING. 



I am pleased with Gleanings, and do not 

 know how I could do without it. In the 

 Dec. 1st issue, page 1507, is a statement by 

 Mr. G. C. Greiner which seems to me the 

 most correct of any I have yet read concern- 

 ing runaway swarms. I have known a prime 

 swarm to issue, leave without clustering, and 

 enter a tree. The owner, being a swift run- 

 ner, followed the swarm to the tree, about 

 half a mile distant, and cut the tree. In less 

 than two hours after, bees entered. He 

 found combs six or eight inches long. Did 

 the bees not prepare a home and build some 

 comb? They were new, and had just been 

 built. The old queen as a rule gives warn- 

 ing by a piping the same as a young virgin 

 does in after-swarms. 



Carbon Black, Pa. Wm. F. Ebert. 



[Swarms will very often leave without 

 first clustering. It may be in such cases that 

 the scouts have located the tree, and lead 

 the swarm to it direct. — Ed ] 



CAUCASIANS NOT AS GOOD HONEY-GATHER- 

 ERS AS THE ITALIANS. 



i hfive two colonies of Caucasians from 

 Washington that seem so energetic in plaster- 

 ing with propolis every opening about the 

 fences, sections, and frames, that they do not 

 gather as much honey as the Italians and 

 hybrids. I now have enough Caucasians. I 

 will Italianize my apiary a little later. 



Pickel, Tenn. F. R. C. Campbell. 



KING BIRDS. 



Mr. Doolittle, in the Jan. 15th number, 

 talks of the king birds. His experience tallies 

 with mine, except that I never saw them 

 bother the bees only when there was a drone 

 flight on, and so far as I could see (and I 

 have watched pretty closely) they caught 

 only drones or queens. A shotgun is the 

 only effectual remedy that I know of. 



Sheridan, Can. W. I. Devlin. 



[We have seen them actually catch bees. — 

 Ed.] 



ducks in an apiary. 



How would it do to keep ducks in the api- 

 ary for keeping the grass down? Would 

 they eat the bees? B. F. Miller. 



Memphis, Tenn. 



[We hardly think so, as we had ducks in 

 our bee-yard all last season, and experi- 

 enced no trouble, — Ed.] 



